Lady Betty Across the Water

Excerpt

ABOUT BEING BANISHED

I don't know yet whether I'm pleased or not, but I do know that I'm excited—more excited than I've ever been in my life, except perhaps when Miss Mackinstry, my last governess, had hysterics in the schoolroom and fainted among the tea things.

I suppose I shan't be able to decide about the state of my feelings until I've had more of them on the same subject, or until I've written down in this book of mine everything exactly as it's happened. I like doing that; it makes things seem so clear when you try to review them afterwards.

The excitement began at breakfast by Mother having a letter that she liked. I knew she liked it by the way her eyes lighted up, as if they had been lamps and the letter a match. All the other letters, mostly with horrid, tradesmanny-looking envelopes, which had been making her quite glowery, she pushed aside.

Mother won't have a crown on her envelopes; she thinks it's vulgar; besides, putting it only on the paper saves expense. This envelope had a great sprawly gold crest, but she didn't seem to disapprove of it. She read on and on, then suddenly glanced up as if she would have said something quickly, to Victoria; she didn't say it, though, for she remembered me. I am never taken into family conclaves, because I'm not out yet. I don't see what difference that makes, especially as I'm not to be allowed to come out till after Vic's married, because she was presented four years ago, and isn't even engaged yet; so for all I can tell I may have to stay in till I'm a hundred, or leak out slowly when nobody is noticing, as Vic says girls do in the middle classes. This time I didn't mind, however, for I couldn't see how the letter concerned me; and as I was dying for a sight of Berengaria's puppies, which were born last night, I was glad when Mother told me not to fidget after I'd finished breakfast, but to run down to the kennels if I liked.

Soon I forgot all about the letter, for the puppies were the dearest ducks on earth (can puppies be ducks, I wonder?), and besides, it was such a delicious June morning that I could have danced with joy because I was alive.

I often feel like that; but there's nobody to tell, except the trees and the dogs, and my poor pony, who is almost too old and second-childish now to understand. She was my brother Stanforth's pony first of all, and Stanforth is twenty-eight; then she was Vic's, and Vic is—but Mother doesn't like Vic's age to be mentioned any more, though she is years younger than Stan.

I took a walk in the park and afterwards went through the rose-garden, to see how the roses were getting on. There were a lot of petals for my pot-pourri, and gathering them up kept me for some time. Then, as the jar stands in Vic's and my den (she calls it her den, but it has to be part mine, as I have no other), I was going in by one of the long windows, when I heard Mother's voice. "The question is," she was saying, "what's to be done with Betty?"

I turned round and ran away on my tiptoes across the lawn, for I didn't want to be an eavesdropper, and it would be nearly as bad to have Mother know I had heard even those few words; she would be so annoyed, and Mother chills me all the way through to my bones when she's annoyed....